About 20 nurses and midwives attended an action outside the base hospital on Wednesday.

They called for ratios to be enforced on a shift by shift basis.

Country Labor candidate for Port Macquarie Peter Alley said the lack of ratios was affecting the ability for nurses and midwives to properly care for patients.

"We are committed to safe ratios in line with the calls by the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association," he said.

"Labor supports those calls because we believe in public health.

"These ratios would be enforced on a per shift basis and would also apply to each shift through the day.

"There is a clinical need for us to back these calls for the ratios," he said.

The ratios would see 1:4 in medical surgical wards and 1:3 in critical care wards.

Mr Alley said the Coalition's announcement of more nursing staff was very vague on details. "Are we talking qualified nurses? What areas will they work in," he said.

Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams says the Coalition has boosted the nursing and midwifery workforce by almost 20 per cent to 51,890 while in government.

"And doctor numbers have soared by 35 per cent to 12,100," she said.

“If re-elected we will boost this by a further 5000 nurses and midwives across the state. 

“This increase in nurse numbers equates to even higher nurse to patient ratios than the NSW Nurses & Midwives’ Association asked for and eclipses all Labor’s promises,” Mrs Williams said.

“This means patients will have more nurses to look after them and nurses will have more colleagues to share the workload.”

Mrs Williams said when it comes to health Labor can’t be trusted to support our nurses and midwives.  

In fact, in their last year of office in 2010 they cut 400 FTE health jobs from our local health district, she said.

One of the nurses attending the action, David, says it would improve work conditions to have ratios in place.

"I am not sure what our ratios are compared with other states," he said.

"But they are not all the same.

"It would be great to get the correct ratios in place."

Mr Alley said, should Labor win the March 23 state election, there was no time frame in place to introduce the ratio system.

"But it will be in a very short space of time," he said.

"The ratios would be regulated within each hospital and within the awards."

Nurses and midwives association organiser Jeff Crebert said patients in a Port Macquarie hospital should have the same staff ratios compared with other hospitals around the state and the country.

"Why do we currently have levels of care based on your postcard?" he said.

"Why should Port Macquarie Base Hospital ratios be different to those in Westmead or any other hospital?

"As well, we also need babies to count in these ratios. Right now babies are not counted as a patient once they are born.

Mr Crebert noted the Coalition government had on Monday announced its decision to provide more staff "but the devil is in the detail".

"We want those ratios on a shift by shift basis," he added.

Local nurses and midwives association organiser Mark Brennan described the current system as "flawed".